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Monday, November 11, 2013

by Alex Harris, TNReport, 05 Nov 2013- After
two days of hearings on Tennessee’s public school textbook selection
process, majority-party Senate Republicans are indicating they’ll push
for developing new review-and-approval procedures, and perhaps throw the
current system out altogether.

Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Dolores Gresham told reporters
after the close of the meeting she “sensed a real doubt” among fellow
Republicans that “the Textbook Commission as it is structured now is
fixable.”

“I think that what will happen now is that we will look at some of
what these other states are doing and take the best practices and see if
we can reconstitute our state textbook commission so that it works
better,” said Gresham.

The hearings, held jointly by the Senate Education and Government
Oversight committees, consisted of testimony from state Department of
Education officials and Textbook Selection Commission members.
The lawmakers also listened to a number of conservative activists who
said many state-approved education materials contain an assortment of
passages that are ideologically biased, erroneous or in other ways
objectionable and unsuited for Tennessee public school classrooms. The
complaints focused on what those testified said they perceived to be
unflattering depictions of capitalism and Christianity, omissions of key
facts and outright inaccuracies in many of the social studies and
history textbooks used to instruct high-school aged kids in Tennessee.

Hal Rounds, a Fayette County attorney and self-described libertarian,
took issue, for example, with how recently approved textbooks in
government-run schools are representing early American history and basic
tenets of the United States Constitution. “The point is that the
textbook selection process is supposed to provide us with tools that we
can give our kids, that tell them what the world was really like. And it
is not doing that,” said Rounds.

Claudia Henneberry, a retired teacher and activist with the Tea
Party-affiliated 9.12 Project, said she spent several weeks researching
state textbooks and found numerous instances of “racial bias” in which
whites were cast in a negative light or are portrayed as oppressive
intruders into North America. She also complained that most social
studies and history texts in public schools generally tend to exhibit a
liberal or pro-Democrat political slant.

On economic matters, Henneberry said “capitalism is portrayed as
unfair in these books, most of them, and that wealthy is greedy, whereas
socialism and other states of socialism are shown as preferable.”

Others who spoke leveled similar criticisms. Some also said that when
they raised concerns with local school officials they were often either
ignored or told the state has ultimate decision-making authority over
the books schools use.

As the meeting came to a close, Senate Government Operations
Committee Chairman Mike Bell said that after listening to all the
protests from the conservatives who spoke he’s inclined to scrap the
current process and “start all over.”

Bell said he’d favor Tennessee borrowing from what other states are
doing and at the same time ensure the public has more input in the
process. The states that are doing the best with how they select
textbooks offer “more parental input, more local input, more
transparency,” said the Republican from Riceville. Virginia, Utah and
Louisiana have models worth looking into, he said.

Additionally, Bell said that he would like the General Assembly to
have some decision-making ability over the membership of the commission.
Currently, state textbook commissioners are appointed solely by the
governor for a term of three years.

Gresham said addressing the issues raised by critics warrants being a
legislative priority in 2014. “It’s evident from the hearings that
we’ve had today and yesterday that we need to give our full attention to
the state textbook commission and its structure and its function,” said
the Somerville Republican.

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